Warfare and the Making of Early Medieval Italy (568–652)

Eduardo Fabbro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781032173900
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000030174
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Devastated by two decades of war and ravaged by the spread of the plague, large parts of Italy fell quickly into the hands of a group known to history as the Lombards. By the early 570s the Lombards were firmly established in Italy, which they ruled without ever fully unifying it. The events of the late sixth century shaped early medieval Italy. They also affected how Italian history was written: the Lombards were blamed for plunging the peninsula into the darkness of the Middle Ages, finally ending Roman civilization. But was it really a 'barbarian invasion' that created medieval Italy? What was the role of the imperial authorities and the papacy? In Warfare and the Making of Early Medieval Italy, Eduardo Fabbro brings a new take on the changes that shook Italy at the end of the sixth century. Moving past traditional narratives of barbarians and battles, the book re-evaluates the impact of war in creating early medieval Italy. Fabbro brings to the fore a complex picture that includes not only invading barbarians but also rebelling soldiers, disgruntled farmers, vexed commanders, and cunning adventurers trying to make the best of a bad situation. Through a complete reassessment of contemporary and later sources, this book rewrites the history of the first decades of Lombard rule and shows that warfare's impact went far beyond battles and invasions; it rewired the social and political links that bound the region.

1 The Lombard rebellion

In most textbooks, the establishment of the Lombard Kingdom in Italy in 568/9 follows a well-known narrative. In 535, after defeating the Vandals (533–34), Justinian extended his policy of reclaiming former Byzantine territories to Italy, now setting his eyes on the Ostrogothic Kingdom.¹ Using the death of Amalasuntha as an excuse, he moved the Byzantine army into southern Italy, aiming to thrust northwards towards the Gothic capital in Ravenna. Different from the quick African campaign, the war in Italy dragged on for years, and the Byzantine troops only managed to fully subdue the Goths by 555. The Byzantine grasp of the devastated post-war Italy, however, proved fragile. In 568 (or 569), the Lombards invaded, only to be bogged down in a long protracted war to unify the peninsula, a goal they never accomplished. The resulting stalemate between Byzantine and Lombard forces doomed Italy to political fragmentation, inaugurating the Italian ‘Dark Ages’.

Since the Risorgimento, scholars have seen the end of the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the establishment of the Lombards as a major rupture in Italian history. For the nineteenth-century nationalists, the ‘Germanic Lombards’ were then seen as precursors of the Austrians, whose presence in Italy perpetuated the overall political backwardness of the nation.² The Lombards, renowned for their violence and cruelty, devastated the peninsula and enslaved the Romans. Despite their ruthlessness, they were unable to conquer the entire peninsula. Deemed too violent to be contained but too weak to unify Italy, the Lombards were never raised to the status of founders of a nation—as several early medieval gentes did elsewhere in nineteenth-century Europe (Geary 2002 15–40; Kulikowski 2007, 43–70). The violence of the Lombard invasion was thought to mark the end of the classical civilization and the beginning of the fragmentation of medieval Italy—a process nineteenth-century Italian nationalists aimed to revert. In the first half of the twentieth century, even if a generation of great early medievalists, such as Gian Piero Bognetti, Ottorino Bertolini, and Giovanni Tabacco, were able to rekindle the interest in the period, the Lombards were hardly given better press (e.g., Bognetti 1966–68; Bertolini 1972; Tabacco 1979).

1 Traditionally, ‘Roman’ is reserved for the period before Justinian, while ‘Byzantine’ is used for the period following 565. Since this work deals exactly with this period of transition, terminology has been standardized as ‘Byzantine’. Quotations, from both primary and secondary sources, have been kept in the original wording.

2 For the role of the Lombards in Italian historiography, see Tabacco 1990; Gasparri 2003, 2014, 185–89; Wood 2013, 113–36, 217–20.

In recent years, the impact of the Lombard invasion has been reconsidered. Recent archeological surveys have shown that the rupture in material culture in Italy should be traced not to a catastrophic invasion in 568, but to a slow downturn starting on the fifth century. New research connects the material impoverishment with a general slowdown of Mediterranean economy, intensified by deteriorating weather and plagues (Marazzi 1998; Wickham 1999, 2005, 209ff.). In Italy, Justinian’s wars aggravated this trend, crippling productive forces and spreading sorrow, hunger, and tribulation. Thus, when the Lombards finally arrived, the conditions already looked grim (see pp. 64–66). This reassessment of the archeological material came together with a reevaluation of the nature of the Lombard presence in Italy. Historians have begun to question the invasion altogether: instead of a violent conquest, it has been suggested that the Lombards were in Italy, in one form or another, as a result of Roman policy in the region (Christie 1991; Pohl 1993, 1997a, 2001; Everett 2003, 54–99). This fresh narrative has been based on a new understanding of the negotiations between the empire and the various barbarian gentes that have recently been depicted in terms of Integration und Anerkennung, integration and recognition (Pohl 1997a, 112–29).

Central to this ‘negotiated conquest’ is the idea that the Lombards were not invaders, but were instead allowed into Italy by imperial authorities. The evidence for this arrangement comes from a number of sources, some as early as the seventh century, which accuse the local commander in chief Narses of inviting the Lombards to take possession of Italy. Narses’s ‘invitation’ has been long known, but scholars tended to dismiss it as gossip.³ These objections notwithstanding, Neil Christie brought back the debate in the 1990s, suggesting the idea of invitation might be grounded in real facts. Even though the invitation as an act of revenge sounds unlikely, he argued, the episode might hide official Byzantine policy. The Lombards had for long been federates of the empire and had occupied Pannonia on imperial grant; it would not be too far-fetched, Christie suggests, to assume a similar relocation to Italy (Christie 1991, 102–06). An authorized settlement, instead of an invasion, would indeed explain why the sources fail to mention any military resistance to the Lombards. The emphasis then shifts from the violent nature of the Lombards to their connections to the imperial army. This reading fits the new tendency to see the settlement of the barbarians as grounded on the imperial policy of settlement and accommodation, either following the traditional interpretation of hospitalitas (transference of land) or Goffart’s new model (transference of taxes) (see pp. 58–64). Christie’s thesis, however, leaves behind questions on the reliability of the evidence and on how an invitation fits the context of post-Justinianic Italy. This chapter aims to tackle those issues.

3 For instance, Hodgkin 1885, vol. 5, 63–5; Hartmann 1897b, 23–4; Schmidt 1969 [1941], 588–9, esp. n. 2; Wickham 1981; Jarnut 1982, 33–6; Tabacco 1979, 94–5; Christou 1991, 108–09, more recently, Gasparri 2011, 75; Borri 2016, 43–46. Some scholars accepted the story of the invitation, but denied its practical impact in the advent of the Lombards, considered still as a straight forward military invasion; see Delogu 1980; Mor 1964, 387. The reading can be traced back to Hegel 1964 [1847], 151–52. Bognetti suggested that the story of the invitation was true, but related to a previous moment, when Justinian had married Auduin to an Ostrogothic princess (cf. Proc. Bella 8.25.11–15), which might have given the Lombards the idea they held a legitimate claim to Italy, see Bognetti 1966-68, 50–51.

Invasion or invitation?

When Paul the Deacon composed his Historia Langobardorum (HL), Narses’s ‘invitation’ was part of the Lombard tradition, already figuring in surviving texts in the seventh century. Paul indeed knew quite well some of these texts, which he wove into an elegant story explaining how (and why) the Lombards ended up in Italy. It is that well-crafted tale that most scholars have favored, trusting Paul to iron out the wrinkles of other sources into a smooth narrative. The result, as Francesco Mores has rightly put it, is the ‘typical use of Paul’s narrative: what Paul says and what happened mostly coincide’ (Mores 2013, 214). This modern reliance on Paul turns the HL into a necessary starting point.

Paul the Deacon and the arrival of the Lombards in Italy

The Lombard invasion is the main event of the second book of the HL, which starts with cooperation between Narses and the Lombards (HL 2.1) and ends with the destruction of Italy by the unruly Lombard dukes (HL 2.32). This narrative arc was described by Walter Goffart (1988, 388–94) as tragedy, a verdict that mostly stands. Paul carefully laid out the sources he had at his disposal to build a narrative of Roman sin and redemption, and of the fall of human endeavor by lust.⁴ The story starts with Alboin’s successes and reputation, which led Narses to ask him for help against Totila. The Lombards were then living in Pannonia and were allied to the empire (HL 2.1).⁵ In Italy, Narses was victorious, first against the Franks and later against the usurpation of Sinduald (HL 2.2–3). He was a good Christian and a man of great virtue: he won battles more by prayers than by feats of arms (HL 2.3). Italy flourished under him. The good times were, however, soon to change. A pestilence engulfed the country, especially Liguria (HL 2.4). More telling, the plague preyed only on the Romans: it was a harbinger of the tragedy they were about to unleash. Paul misplaced the plague (which happened a few years after the advent of the Lombards) to highlight the sinfulness of the Romans and to show how God had opened the way to the Lombards.⁶

4 Hence, the brave Narses had reconquered Italy from the Goths, but was demoted by the jealousy of the Romans; the brave Alboin replaced him in Italy without bloodshed, but was killed by his hubris and his resentful wife. The book can be divided in two major parts: (1) the tragedy of Narses (2.1–8) and (2) the tragedy of Alboin (2.30–32). In between (2.9–29) we have the description of Italy and Alboin’s conquests of the provinces. For a similar view—though with a different division—see Goffart 1988, 388–94.

5 This information Paul obtained from Jordanes, Romana, 386–87.

6 For the dating of the plague, Mar. Av. s.a. 570–71; Exc. Sang. 570, 1988, 389.

The second act of this tragedy confirms the iniquity of the Romans when, out of sheer jealousy, they turned their backs on the devout Narses. Paul shows how they petitioned emperor Justin and his wife Sophia to remove him. ‘It would have been better for the Romans’ they said ‘to serve the Goths rather than the Romans as long as Narses is in command and oppresses us with servitude.’ The Byzantine court took the threat seriously and Justin sent Longinus right away to replace Narses. The commander, having heard of the news, was terrified; he dared not return to Constantinople and face empress Sophia because she ‘is said to have told him that she would put him together with the girls, to weave’. And to this, Narses answered he would weave such a web that the queen would never be able to lay aside (HL 2.5; cf. Fred. 3.65). Moved by hate and fear, Narses fled to Naples and, still according to Paul, ‘soon sent messengers to the Lombards, urging them to abandon the poor fields of Pannonia, and come take possession of Italy, bustling with all kinds of wealth’. As an incentive, he sent a sample of the many riches of the Italian countryside. Immediately, terrible signs appear in the skies, a foreboding of the blood that would be shed (HL 2.5).⁷ Receiving the invitation, Alboin moved his people from Pannonia into Italy, gathering wives and children, not before agreeing with the Huns (i.e., the Avars) that if eventually the Lombards needed to return, they could have their fields back (HL 2.7).

Earlier and near contemporary sources

Paul’s vivid picture cannot be fully reproduced by the surviving sixth- and seventh-century evidence. No sixth-century Italian source for the events of 568–69 survived. The earliest evidence mentioning the invasion are two late sixth-century Gallic texts, namely Gregory of Tours’s Histories and Marius of Avenches’s Chronicle, both composed in the late 580s–early 590s.⁸ Shortly after, John of Biclarum produced a continuation of the chronicle of Victor of Tunnuna, which he finished around 603;⁹ after that, Isidore wrote his Chronicle, which he finished probably in 615, with a new edition in 626 (Martín 2003, 13–20).¹⁰ The anonymous Copenhagen Continuation of Prosper (CH) was produced in northern Italy around 641 (or as early as 625).¹¹ And finally, from around 660s, there is the Chronicle attributed to Fredegar, whose third book, albeit a continuation of Gregory’s Histories, also incorporated material from other sources.¹² Harder to date is the Liber Pontificalis (LP), which preserves much material from the late sixth and early seventh century. The papal biographies were often put together shortly after the death of each pope, but the date of composition of specific Vitae is harder to establish, especially for late sixth- and early-seventh century popes. For the sixth-century Vitae, the historiographical consensus points to a composition around 640.¹³ Also hard to date is the Origo gentis Langobardorum, originally an expansion of the list of kings at the prologue of Rothari’s Edict (643) (see pp. 152–53). Given that Paul used the work extensively and that the text survives in no manuscript prior to the tenth century, it is impossible to tell to which extent the Origo has been contaminated back by the HL.¹⁴ The text has been dated to the 670s–680s,¹⁵ but since the integrity of the text is dubious, it is hard to know how much to rely on this date. Of these texts, only Isidore, the LP, t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of maps and tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Lombard rebellion
• 2. Fragmentation (569–74)
• 3. The battle for Italy
• 4. To tame a land
• 5. New deal
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index